1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, an image processing program, and an image capturing apparatus, and more particularly, to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, an image processing program, and an image capturing apparatus for correcting an input image for blur using a recovery filter in accordance with blurriness of the image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Photographs taken by image capturing apparatuses are frequently out of focus or blurred, which are called blurry photographs. Such blurry photographs can be corrected for blur including out-of-focus blur using dedicated photo retouch software installed in a personal computer or the like and transformed into favorable images.
In a correction operation using photo retouch software of the related art, a target image is read into a personal computer. When an image capturing apparatus is a digital camera, the image capturing apparatus can transfer captured image data to the personal computer. Subsequently, a user sets various image-correcting parameters and applies a correction filter including the set various parameters to the target image. The photo retouch software generates a correction filter on the basis of the set various parameters, applies the correction filter to the target image to generate a corrected image, and displays the corrected image on an image display apparatus or the like. Looking at the image displayed on the image display apparatus, the user adjusts the parameters by try and error until a desired image is obtained. The target image may be, besides an image captured with the image capturing apparatus, an image read with an image reading apparatus or an image obtained via a network. Besides personal computers, more and more models of image reading apparatuses such as scanners and photo-printers now have the blur correction function.
Besides software-based correction processing, a proposal has been made in, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-36737 (see FIG. 2) to dispose a correction circuit on a photo processing apparatus so that special correction including blur correction can be performed using hardware.